This type of thing gets its name from Super Mario Bros., where you could easily warp to a buggy level “-1” and progress from there. But there are ways to escape that structure by exploiting flaws in the game’s code, letting you run free in portions of the game’s data that aren’t meant to be “real” levels - yet the game’s engine will interpret the data as best it can, producing in some cases pretty wacky but still navigable levels. If you think about an NES game as a big file, there are places where graphics are stored, sounds and music are described and, of course, level layouts and enemy logic are kept.Īs a player, you are expected to navigate the structured parts of this file, namely the game world - level 1, 2, 3, this or that dungeon or town, etc.

The phenomenon was discovered by YouTuber SKELUX, who starts off his video with a quick explanation of how minus worlds work. So the news that The Legend of Zelda for NES has a minus world like Super Mario Bros. And I happen to love it when retro games get broken in fabulous and entertaining ways.

It’s not every day that a new fact comes to light regarding a game that came out more than 30 years ago.

Super mario bros world minus 1